“You had our parents’ phone number? All this time?”
“Email address.” Milly’s eyes filled with tears. “I swear, I just asked Mom for how they got away. If they ran out of the country, you could too. And she actually replied. With all these questions! I thought she was asking so she could help us come up with an escape plan.”
She dumped her head on the folder again. Her voice muffled. “I told her everything she needed to kidnap Zain.”
It just … still didn’t make any sense. “Milly, why? You knew what kind of people they are. Kidnapping is nothing to them.”
“But just me! I’m the one they target.” She lifted her head. “I thought, if it’s you, they’d help.”
Zara pointed at the scar on her forehead. “This is from where Dad threw a wine bottle with a broken neck at my head.”
Milly fixed on the scar like she’d never seen it before. “I don’t remember that.”
“It’s okay. You were three.”
“But you never…”
“Never what?”
Milly frowned.
Zara assured her. “We’re just possessions to them. You and me both. Why did you think our experiences were different?”
“You’re so fearless. You swam after their yacht and brought them to justice.”
“I was terrified.”
“And you talk about them all the time like it’s nothing. I can’t look … I can’t see their pictures without feeling this horrible, dark, squeezing in the pit of my stomach.” She rested her hands on her stomach and then lifted her trembling fingers with wide eyes. “Look. Even thinking about them makes me start to shake.”
Stunning awareness finally shook Zara free of her agony.
She had wronged Milly. Again.
Suppressing her memories, keeping silent about her fears, and thinking she was the only one who would ever be abused by their parents had simply set Milly up to become their next victim. Remaining silent, to this day, had continued to isolate Milly. It had made her believe that only she would ever be hurt by them again.
“And then I drew them here,” Milly continued, dissolving into recriminations again. “You and Elan jumped in the water and revealed your location to the bad warriors. Everything’s my fault.”
“I forgive you,” Zara said.
Milly’s mouth opened and closed. “What?”
“I shouldn’t have kept silent all those years about what happened.”
Trying to “get over it” and “move on” made everything worse. It “dishonored” her injury, as Elan would say. From now on, she was going to double down on her anger. Really vent it. And she wasn’t going to be silent any longer.
Zara’s anxiety faded. She knew what she had to do.
“How can you be so calm?” Milly demanded. “I caused this. Zain’s kidnapping, twice, and losing Elan.”
Zara changed the subject. “That first queen, Lucy. In your research, did you find out how to contact her?”
Milly stopped, self-loathing derailed. “Her Facebook page. Why?”
“I need to speak with one of those warriors of Atlantis. Could she put me in contact with one of them?”
“Probably. You might have more luck with her friend.” Milly bit her lip and opened the manila folder. “This is the packet I was telling you about this morning. I’m almost afraid to give it to you. I mean, maybe it really is cursed.”
The worst had already happened. Zara took the sheaf.
Entitled, Stories of the Sea Brides, it appeared to be a set of interviews. A loose cover letter on the bottom invited Milly to share her story of being left behind for a year while her older sister lived on the bottom of the sea.
“Even though you were not a sea bride yourself, I think you have a valuable perspective to share,” the author, Mel, wrote in loopy blue pen. “Call me if you ever want to talk.”
Zara flipped through the roughly formatted pages.
“Mel’s the friend of Lucy.” Milly rested on her elbows. “I didn’t submit anything, but I thought about it. I was really lonely the year you were absent. And then, after you got back…”
“I still wasn’t really here,” Zara finished. She closed the manila folder. The dull ache of her loss changed back to the stab of recrimination. “I should have read this before I got in the water.”
“It might still have helpful tips for transforming your fins.” Her sister frowned hard. “Those warriors broke their own rules. They can’t get away with that.”
Elan had promised the warriors would not chase her onto the land. They wouldn’t expose themselves to humans.
Muscles burning, puking water, she’d stumbled out of the surf. Terror fought exhaustion. Several people had crowded close, asking if she was okay. She’d pushed through them, shaking them off, and hauled Zain beyond the dry high-tide mark. Her eyes had focused on the parking lot, on the police, on the hills.
Suddenly, shocked screams had erupted behind her.
A new burst of fear pushed her on. Dry sand. She kicked dry sand and stumbled for thicker crowds.
But it hadn’t been enough.
A seaweed net had slithered over her, slapping her with wet lashes. It tightened around her throat and dragged her to the ground. Then, a naked merman had dragged her back into the ocean. It had happened too fast for anyone on shore to react.
But there had been hundreds of witnesses. Of course there were minutes of cell phone camera footage.
The police had been waiting for her once she gave up chasing them and dragged herself out.
“You’re right.” She set her jaw. “I don’t intend to let them.”
Milly’s phone vibrated. She checked the screen and stood.
“Milly.” Zara pushed the interview packet into the manila folder. “Do you think you could get ahold of this Mel?”
Milly looked at her in surprise. “You want to meet her?”
“She might know how to reach those Atlantis warriors too. I’m looking for a guide.”
“That’s great. I’m so grateful you feel that way.” Milly went to the back door with a grimace of guilt. “I kind of told Mel you were up from your nap so now’s a good time to talk.”
Zara rose as well. “She’s here?”
“I called her at the police station and she got on a plane right away. She’s come to see you.”
Zara rubbed her elbows. “Now?”
“You can ask her your questions.” Milly opened the back door. “This is Mel.”
21
A woman stood on their back step. She greeted them with a warm smile. In her arms, she held a child a few months older than Zain.
Zara’s throat closed.
Mel greeted Milly and then came in and crossed the floor to Zara, her charm disarming as Vaw Vaw’s, her handshake firm and yet comforting. “Hi Zara, I’m Mel and this is my youngest, Violet Lee.”
Violet smiled shyly and hid in her mother’s shirt.
“Aw, don’t mind her. She’s shy around strangers.”
Zara cleared her painfully closed throat. “Um, is she…?”
“Mer? No, her daddy is one hundred percent computer programmer. Some might say that isn’t human either, but at least he’s recognized by the government.”
Her tone conveyed her understanding.
“He’s out of town this week. Our older three are at sleepovers and I couldn’t arrange last-minute sitting.”
Zara fought to reconcile her conflicting emotions. This woman had four children with her husband. The world gave them no grief about being together. It wasn’t fair. Zara fought a brief, unwelcome wave of green jealousy.
Mel smiled sympathetically as though aware of the direction of Zara’s thoughts. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
She led Mel to the back patio.
Milly brought out passion fruit juice and crackers, and then she took Mel’s toddler, Violet, around to the front to play with a collection of seashells.
“So you’re an interviewer,” Zara said.
“N
ot by trade. I’m collecting these stories,” Mel held up her own, much thicker copy of the interviews she’d earlier sent to Milly, “because I think a lot more people are affected by our government’s indecision about how to treat mermen seeking asylum. You are only the most recent example. And certainly more will be affected once we launch our dating site.”
“Dating site?” Zara recoiled. “You want to send more helpless women down there?”
“We want to offer more willing women the chance to live their dreams as a mermaid queen,” Mel corrected. “Welcome to live freely in either world with their families. And that’s why governments need to act. If Elan and Zain could have gotten their passports on the first day, you’d all be in California already.”
“That just would have delayed the fight,” she said, unable to dismiss the bitterness. “You and Elan both said the problems with the mer are worldwide.”
“Yes, relocating to California would have delayed your fight,” Mel repeated, as though Zara had confirmed her point. “Delayed it until you were ready to fight on your terms, not theirs.”
“I might never have been ready.”
Mel eyed her shrewdly. “Do you really believe that’s true?”
Well … if Zara could have made her fins … and could have grown her power…
Her feelings had swelled with every moment they’d spent together. Assuming there wasn’t something actually wrong with her, wouldn’t her power and fins have come, eventually?
Probably something was wrong.
Elan had denied she was a queen to save her from being lashed to the reef. But deep down, she feared it was true.
After all, she’d thought she’d used her power today. Under the water, half-strangled by those funny ropes, she’d seen a dagger stabbing up at Elan’s unguarded heart and she’d been overwhelmed by fury.
No, you don’t!
She’d thrown up her hands to ward off the attack, and a magical white light had sparkled like an armload of disturbed sand, confusing everyone and altering the strike. The knife had missed Elan’s heart and sliced into his arm.
She must have been mistaken though because after that Elan said she had no power.
“Why are you here?” she asked finally. “Dropping everything to fly across the ocean from — where did you say you were from again? Florida?”
“Two reasons.” Mel smiled again, warm and determined. “The first is to get your statement for my book of interviews.”
“I’m not really in a writing mood.”
“I have a video recorder.” She lifted her cell phone. “Lucy taught me all about the benefits of Facebook Live.”
Zara sighed.
“The second is do whatever I can to help you.”
That seemed impossible. “How? You can’t bring them back.”
“No. But I could bring you to them.”
She straightened. Was it really possible? “No human can swim down to Dragao Azul.”
“No human can. But suppose I could get you there. Would you go? Tonight?”
Jagged shock fought with her wishes. Zara uncoiled from the chair and stood up, staring down at Mel with fury. “Of course I would leave immediately. But why suggest this? Without my power, aren’t I useless?”
“Honey, you’re not useless.”
“I’m certainly not a ‘real’ queen. I can’t even make my fins!”
“That’s not unusual.”
“It’s the first step in capturing my ‘queen power.’”
“There’s no actual proof that’s true.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve heard a number of people say making fins first is necessary, but going over the stories,” she lifted her packet, “I think some women have used their powers without even realizing it.”
That was ridiculous. “How could you use a magical superpower and not know?”
Mel flipped in several pages. “One bride caused a white shield to shelter her husband from a fight. Another stopped a gravel slide from crushing their city’s Life Tree. Yet another fended off a shark with what she described as, ‘white sand.’”
“White sand?” Zara repeated sharply.
“In all these cases, nobody recognized the women as doing anything. Even the women never thought of it as a power. They blamed currents, luck, or in the case of the shark, it was a ‘freak underwater sandstorm.’ People discount their own abilities. Channeling your city’s Life Tree into a protective power only requires feeling deeply resonant, centered, and true in your soul.”
Then … Zara had done it? She had channeled the Dragao Azul Life Tree during the attack and nobody had noticed.
They had dismissed her. They had told her she hadn’t done anything.
And she had believed them.
The old anger kindled in her chest.
Sure, her parents had made her doubt whether right was wrong or up was down. They’d poisoned her psyche since her impressionable, vulnerable childhood.
How dare complete strangers hoodwink her as an adult?
She had allowed herself to be fooled. Elan too. He’d been told a “truth” — that she had to make her fins before she could display powers — and believed that was the only way. Just like their attackers believed the ancient covenant was the only way. They were proved wrong and nobody had even seen it.
“I also might have channeled the Life Tree,” she said.
Mel smiled warmly. “Can you remember how you felt the moment the power flowed through you? You’ll need to create that feeling again.”
No problem. Zara remembered exactly how she’d felt.
The same anger had calmed her when she’d stormed her parents’ yacht to save Zain. Her anger had clarified to a pure white cleansing fury.
“Yes.”
Mel’s smile broadened. “We can leave right away.”
This was crazy. Zara rubbed her forehead. It wasn’t exactly jumping on a plane in the middle of senior finals crazy, or accepting a mysterious sea lord’s proposal during the first meeting, but diving against impossible odds was up there. “I can barely swim.”
“I have a solution.” Mel rose and motioned for her rental minivan. “Let’s go.”
Zara followed.
At the front, a proud smile cracked Milly’s face. “You’re going?”
Zara pulled her into a hug. “I’ll be back.”
Milly returned her heartfelt squeeze. “I know you will.”
They all drove down to the beach. Despite what had happened here only hours before, Zara didn’t feel fear. She faced the sunset’s declining rays with determination.
This would be the last sunset she watched alone.
She swore it.
Down the quieter beach, a dark-haired man strolled toward them. He wore a long mauve dress shirt and classy trousers, and the position of the sun blinded her to his features.
Mel unzipped a large duffel in the trunk and removed two magenta plastic scuba fins. “These were Lucy’s. I’m not sure about fit. I’ve got her swim socks in here as well.”
Zara lifted them skeptically.
“They’re not the fastest, but plastic is better than nothing.”
“I’ll take them.” She slung the fins over one finger.
The man limped to their group. Up close, his shirt matched mauve tattoos swirling across his face. His tattoos were punctured with vicious, recent scars. He stood tallest but had to hunch from an old injury.
He was a mer.
“This is Faier,” Mel said. “He knows the location of Dragao Azul.”
He looked away and tugged his sleeves lower. The gesture of shy gentleness was completely different from the warriors Zara had met. But his scars meant he knew combat, just like Elan.
“Alright.” She took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“Wait. Let me get your statement.” Mel messed with her phone.
She itched to leave. “Right now?”
“Think of what you want to say to the visitors of Lucy’s Facebook page. They’re
mostly seeking information on the mer and their brides. Okay.” She pointed the phone at Zara. “Tell me about yourself, who you are and what’s going on here.”
Oh.
Right.
This was her chance. “Can I make this a message to all the other brides?”
“Honey, you can send your message out to anyone in the whole world.”
Zara stared directly into the tiny shining lens. “My name is Zara. I was a sacred bride in Dragao Azul. My parents schemed to traffick my underage sister for a Sea Opal. I went willingly down to the city instead. But I did not agree to give up my son. Neither did my husband.”
Milly and Faier listened intently. Milly stood with a quietly playing Violet. The camera recorded every word.
“Today, warriors stole my husband and son away from me. They came onto the land. My land. They stole my family.”
Zara held up one finger. A warning to the warriors, who would never see this video and to the world, who would. “If this happened to you, you’re not alone. If you’re angry, feel angry. What happened to you was wrong. It needs to be righted.
“Now I’m going down to their city to take them back.”
Mel slowly lowered the camera. Her smile held hope tinged with sadness.
She understood Mel’s sadness. Mel was a mother and a wife as well as an interviewer of sacred brides. She felt sadness at the warriors who had caused such pain and sadness at the ancient covenant that continued to wreck their lives. And sadness now for Zara who had to go to battle.
“Stay strong,” Mel said in farewell. “Good luck.”
Zara nodded.
Milly hugged her.
She treasured her sister’s embrace. “I will be back.”
“I know.” Milly squeezed her one more time and let her go. Tucking her unruly, wind-swept hair behind her ears, she made fists to root for Zara. “See you soon.”
Faier unbuttoned his long-sleeved shirt, revealing more stitched scars crisscrossing his tautly muscled torso. “I will return in two days.”
“Be safe,” Mel told him. “We’re holding the grand opening of the dating site for you.”
He nodded and moved to the buckle of his trousers.
Zara turned away, giving him privacy. Milly held up a towel for her to change. It was funny, feeling so naked on the beach. She never thought about how naked she’d been under the water.
Sirens and Scales Page 69
